Learning interpersonal communication skills to improve every part of our lives

Perceiving Others (Prompt 2)

I have been stereotyped too many times in my lifetime. The saddest thing is that is has happened since I have moved here to college. The biggest thing that I tend to get stereotyped on has to do with where I am from. When I tell people that I was born and raised in San Luis Obispo, California, everyone who knows of San Luis Obispo, immediately thinks that my whole family is super wealthy, that I has a glorious life growing up, and that I am very high maintenance.

The only thing that is generally true is that I had a fairly nice childhood growing up. But that wasn’t all because of where I am from. I had to do a lot with my families love and support of me. I am definitely not saying that growing up in a very isolated environment such as San Luis Obispo didn’t help my quality of life as a child because I definitely grew up in a place that I would be happy living in for the rest of my life. However, I am saying that I new many people who never had a very pleasant child hood whom also lived in San Luis Obispo.

The thing that is completely false about my stereotype, is that my family and me are fairly well off. This could not be further from the truth. My mother is considered poor in our hometown, making at most 22,000 a year. If that doesn’t seem very low to some that is because they haven’t kept in mind the cost of living in San Luis Obispo. Yes, the majority of my hometown contains fairly wealthy people, but that does not mean everybody is or has to be.

Taking this all into consideration, I would definitely say that stereotyping is something that everyone does, but it is also something that rarely leads to fully true information. I definitely have changed the way I jump to the gun on stereotypes since I have been stereotyped myself.